Ryan Voogt, Ph.D.

Director of Undergraduate Studies; Senior Lecturer

About Me

Ryan Voogt the Director of Undergraduate Studies and a Senior Lecturer in the Lewis Honors College. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Kentucky in 2017. He received an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Michigan in 2010 and a B.S. in Engineering from Calvin College in 2004. Using Russian-, Romanian-, and Hungarian-language sources, Voogt’s dissertation explored what kind of religiosity was acceptable to communist officials in Romania and the Soviet Union after WWII. His other fields of interest and teaching include Western Europe, the Holocaust and other genocides in Europe, agriculture, the environment, and society and culture.  

Ask Me About... 

• Pursuing a Fulbright award
• Russia and Eastern Europe
• Study abroad
• Honors curriculum

Research 

My main area of research pertains to communist Romania and the Soviet Union, and my dissertation focuses on what officials considered acceptable or unacceptable religiosity, and why. My M.A. research focused on globalization and its impact in Romania on traditional communal life and values, and how recent economic forces have done more to unsettle traditional village customs and social orders over the span of two decades than even the collectivization of communism. Here are some recent examples of my work: 

Romanian Orthodox Clergy and Communist Opposition?

Muscovite Intelligentsia, Orthodox Revival, and Late Socialism

Reformation Church Culture and Church-State Battling in Communist Romania